Sex Selection, Politics and U.S. Law

A cynical and manipulative attempt to make access to abortion harder failed today in the U.S. House of Representatives. The "Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act" (PRENDA) ostensibly banned sex-selective abortion; in practice, it was a purely political move intended to paint Democrats into a corner. Brought to a vote under a suspension of the rules, it required a supermajority (two-thirds) in favor and came fairly close but fell short, 246–168.

Genomics England’s plans to move into paid-for genome sequencing of healthy people has done more than raise eyebrows in the scientific world. Last week a parade of the genomics great and good – who had clearly not been informed of...

Last year’s heritable human gene editing scandal continues to reverberate. He Jiankui remains under investigation in China, where authorities have confirmed his work but the extent of his punishment remains unclear, possibly because of some ambiguity in the applicable regulations. He has definitely been fired by his university.

In the US, both Rice University and Stanford are formally investigating faculty members whose involvement with the work may have been more extensive than first thought. Michael Deem of Rice was revealed...

A Chinese researcher recently disrupted the CCR5 gene, which builds a protein that acts as an entryway that HIV uses to gain entry to T-cells, allegedly creating the world’s first genetically engineered baby. Chinese officials moved swiftly to condemn the...